


Blueprints are Unreliable Sources

by LightDescending



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode 16: The Phone Call, Episode 1: Pilot, Episode 25: One Year Later, Episode 27: First Date, M/M, Mild spoilers to Episode 38, POV Cecil (Welcome to Night Vale), POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightDescending/pseuds/LightDescending
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you first arrived here I was unfair." <br/>Or, Cecil addresses some finer points about his developed relationship with Carlos, including the finer points of discretion while on-air and the building of houses as metaphor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blueprints are Unreliable Sources

When you first came here I was unfair to you.

There, I have said it: unfair. Sheepishly, my voice catching on the silence just before the word like a foot scuffing the ground; my eyes abashedly settling on any point of air selected randomly about your shoulders, your neck, the thick curls of hair on your head (anywhere but your eyes, the pinprick heat of your gaze).

What can I say? That I am a reporter?

True, at least. My contract requires me to repeat the words and observations of many, including my own, and you _were_ a novelty. And you did hold a press conference, and we _are_ a Community station so…

But I’m getting sidetracked into excuse and justification. Both are tempting discursive offshoots from a direct line of questioning, and I want to be honest here.

These listeners are much more to me than a paycheque. The source of my news and recipients thereof, a sort of metaphorical eternal combustion engine, producing and consuming in equal measure… yes, a positive feedback loop, you’re right! You can sum things up so neatly, so smartly, and I adore that about you just as much as I ever have.

My listeners are family. Not sanguineous, no, not in any genetic or marital sense. Those, very often, can disappoint. Or, in my case, appear not to exist anymore. Family in the amorphous way that comes about when you spend enough time with people to be accustomed to their quirks and habits, foibles and folly. So that you’re exasperated by their idiosyncrasies but able to share and rejoice in their triumphs. So that you would (and here I believe I’m being much more literal than you would be with your family, given the stories you’ve shared) happily die for them if necessary. Certainly, you’d shed blood on their behalf, or give them a slap upside the head when they need it, and you aren’t above occasional shrieking matches in the hallway even if it _does_ result in both parties suffering mild concussions and a slight problem involving blood trickling from ears, nose, and sundry other orifices.

My listeners are a family constructed from need, support, provision; function, dysfunction, and the sporadic gory internal feud. How could I not want to share with them details about you when an opportunity arose, every once in a while? I believe they hope to see me happy in their own way, and radio is a remarkably efficient vehicle for disseminating widespread messages with almost 100% transmission to all relevant parties, even if professionalism suffers.

But. It was still unfair.

 -

I believe the full number of mentions I’ve made on-air about you can be counted on one person’s digits. Assuming, of course, you’ve maintained or established functional dexterity not only in your hands but in both feet, as is customary for Night Vale citizens to learn in case of (likely) amputation. Also assuming that we are speaking of a bipedal organism with two limbs on his, her, or eir upper bodily segment. That distinction is valid.

 -

My heart, as I’ve come to think of it, is like a house. The chambers within are sometimes spacious, sometimes cramped, often absent when I expect to find them and present when I hope not to.  They possess adequate but uncomfortable furnishings, or else sparse but luxurious ones. The precise configuration of the rooms has a habit of shifting around so that I often wander or race within myself, head awhirl, wondering frantically where the corridors lead or indeed if there is somewhere I’m able to run to at all. Many times the lights are out.

I don’t doubt that you’ve your own heart to live in, Carlos, we are separate beings, but it seemed to me when I met you that your home was warm and gold and possibly more orderly. That there would be salt in your salt shakers and rag-rugs on the floor and mint aftershave in your bathroom cabinet, the smell of strung garlic and dust in the air. It was an enviable golden kind of light I thought I saw through the windows of your eyes. I very much wanted to visit, but I forgot a few of the rules of being neighbourly.

It was unfair of me to gush optimisms about being invited inside to the rest of the town without first bothering to knock on your door and introduce myself, but then: directness isn’t my strong suit. You may have noticed.

 -

I owe you another apology, again related to ‘boundaries’ and my transgressions therein.

I, um, presumed to call your call… that is, the phone call? That you made? The particular one about time failing to work and the clocks not being real. I still get flustered thinking about it, and not merely because my diction failed me so spectacularly at every turn in the conversation.

Well. I presumed to qualify our meeting as a date. Of the romantic variety. And I didn’t think anything of it at the time. After all, you may have noticed, but oft my instincts and impulses leap ahead with much more vigour than rationality. And that’s regrettable. But only in retrospect.

What was clear to me after our coffee was that I had made a gross error in judgement about your intentions at the time. Which, while mortifying for me, must have caused no small amount of confusion on your part about my reaction and subsequent behaviour. The ‘are they or aren’t they’ game of intentions is one of the most insidious in all of existence. But you know, the dumbest thing? Is that it can only be solved by _asking_? And _that’s_ a scary thought. Hence the stammering, and the spilled cup of coffee, and my hasty retreat involving no less than one encounter with an unspotted door jamb.

I was fielding questions from listeners for days afterwards, and had to feign amnesia about the whole event. I rubbed a lump of that strange metallic material that sticks to our fridge over the tape reel from the offending previous broadcast myself to cover my tracks. I don’t believe you listened to my show regularly at that point. You didn’t? I shouldn’t be glad but I am. I _really_ am.

What I learned from that and from future encounters was that communication was going to have to be a thing that I attempted _with_ you, instead of soliciting advice and opinion from my listeners alone. After all, they can’t speak on your behalf or analyse you with greater accuracy than you could because they aren’t you. Also, family can sometimes give… questionable counsel. No, actually, you don’t want examples.

Trust me.

You don’t want to know.

Suffice it to say, some were a little more than unfair.

 -

Apparently my home – the corporeal one - once involved floating gauzy curtains. Covered mirrors. Stacks and stacks of cassette tapes, vinyl records, CDs, 8-tracks, phonograph cylinders, mini-discs, reel-to-reels, USB sticks, even some phonoautograms, the traceries in soot preserved almost flawlessly behind archival glass. So I am told.

I believe that some parts of our self must be influenced by the environments in which they are built, developed, renovated and restructured. If so, then what would those surroundings I previously mention imply?

Sometimes I wonder if I suffer from a striking yet all-too-common lack of self-introspection. Self-reflection, if you want to call it. After all, even the thinnest textiles are capable of obfuscation. And most of those records of sounds would not play. So much of me is bound up in soundbytes since corroded, demagnetized, wiped clean, corrupted, scratched, worn out.  Some were never intended to be heard, only examined: I speak of the phonoautograms.

Many times the lights are out in this house-heart of mine, and I think of igniting the soot-speckled pages on my walls no matter what the cost would be, if only for a fleeting gunpowder spark that might illuminate where I should go.

I still don’t trust mirrors though. They display only our reverse image. A distortion of ourselves. And why should we judge ourselves on outward appearance, when that is only the most fleeting and superficial representation that exists? All the mirrors in my life are covered, except for those held in other people.

 -

I cannot apologize for the day when you almost died. I meant every word that I said, and I believe that I stayed within the limits of professional and personal courtesy.

By that time, I had of course realized and accepted the fact that having you in my life was enough. More than enough, actually. Yes, the feelings were still present. They still shook my foundations, so to speak. Rattled my panes. But it would be enough either way to still have you around Night Vale. To see you, perhaps to talk to you.

The most important thing to me was not the depth or breadth of my feelings and hopes, however. It was _your presence_. Projections flickering onto a wall of possibility couldn’t hold a candle to the brightness of your _being_.  

I was still unprepared – felt demolished, in fact –when I believed you had died. For the first time, I had no words that I wanted to share. None at all.

If you could walk with me I would show you exactly where I’ve hung the impressionistic portrait of your hand on my knee, my head on your shoulder. I wonder if you have a similar print somewhere.

The scars make you no less beautiful.

 -

I appreciate the fact that you respect my ability to move my own furniture around. That you haven’t attempted renovation of my person, although you occasionally have suggestions for where I could make some home improvements.

The results so far have been startling: I find that I like having a fresh coat of paint, and tidying up is making a world of difference. Some of the hallways are starting to look familiar most of the time. The lights are on more often than not, but the result is that sometimes I see more than I maybe want. For instance: I’ve given up hope of ever organizing my stacks of memories and vague recollections, but at least I can move some of the gauze.

I hope you don’t mind that I’m trying right now to sweep out some cobwebs. I’m sure they’ll be back, but this particular dusty corner has been bothering me for a while now.

It’s only fair that I be expected to air this out in the open, right?

When it’s just between the two of us.

 -

I let discretion slip for once to give details of our first date. Which was, again, unfair.

My head was tumultuous with the experience, and it got all tangled up with the salient news story at the time, and… well, one thing led to another and I see you…

You listened to that one.

You really don’t mind?

I know you didn’t mean it that way, believe me, words are _hard_ sometimes, I know, and scientists are far _more_ than self-reliant. Tied for first place are creative, adaptable, courageous, curious, persistent, dedicated…

And actions speak louder.

Yours did.

 -

The family asks about us a lot, but you already knew that.

Did I tell you that I think it’s fun coming up with responses together? Because it is.

They want more information about our lazy day, our grocery lists, our whereabouts. They want to know just what it was you _said_ after we agreed not to get a condo together. They wonder what exactly it is you study, and which of the old Western classic films are my favourite, and what shows we watch together, and if we have any good recipes to share when we’ve got the time, and whether we’re active participants in any subversive activities or rebellions. They want things to be more _personal_ , but I’m glad we’re keeping that just between the two of us.

I have run out of digits on which to count the number of times I want to say things on-air, but choose not to. The choice makes all the difference.

 -

We need to be careful, you and I, because honesty on-air can get us in trouble in more than one way, now that Daniel is my producer. There are manoeuvers. Moves and counter-moves. We are being watched all the time, now more than ever, and it is safe for you to be my _boyfriend_ but not safe for you to be my _partner._

I hear that Strexcorp is fond of demolition when it enables progress.

We need to be careful.

 -

I’m glad that you think I’m doing better. Your comfort is what’s important to me in all of this.

 -

There are times where I think of my heart as a house. The wiring is faulty which results in darkened rooms. The halls don’t always lead to reliable places. The rooms shift around. Sometimes blood or dark water leaks from the walls, and the house is empty and echoey, and all I can do is scream into the empty corridors of myself and pray the walls hold up. All fairly standard, right?

It bothers me that I don’t know everything I have contained inside me. It bothers me that I’ve lost things, somewhere. Some changes are permanent.

I don’t trust mirrors but there are photographs here now of you and I, and you hold up the better parts of me so I can see them.

When you first arrived here I was unfair. I was inconsiderate, invasive, and shared too much of the floor plan that I thought I could see before the foundation posts were even dug.

I know that you’re a separate person from me, but I’m glad I’ve been welcomed so warmly into your home.

There is a room here in me just for you. It is private, but I can try to show it to you if you like.

I always know where to find it.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading an awful lot of Jeanette Winterson lately and one of the things I really admire about her is the deeply personal way that she uses figures of speech to tell a story. Obviously, these include simile and metaphor. The first couple paragraphs came to me after I'd read a some of her short stories (Disappearances I and II, if you want to read them), and I filled in the rest later.   
> I've also noticed that there are a lot of fics that focus on Carlos's side of the story - how he would theoretically respond to Cecil's on-air mentions of him. It started me wondering: what would Cecil say in a conversation about this (because I really do believe it would come up at some point, the way that Cecil talks about Carlos and why). I also think it would result in a slightly uncomfortable (but honest) apology.   
> Please forgive me any clumsiness of writing (first person is rare for me, rarer still that I attempt to construct a literary metaphor). And thank you, in advance, for any comments, critiques, feedback, and simply for reading this fic.


End file.
